Morning Star United Methodist Church

If you watched the FIRST video with the dance, before this interview video below, then perhaps you will enjoy Matt’s interview.

I believe you can be what you want to be. Just DO IT !

Even if you have a good day ! This has to put a smile on your face! God’s people are beautiful! (If you don’t know about Matt, you can see more of his work. He is an internet star! Matt’s little dance that was suggested to him by a friend. It took off from there). Cool guy !

At General Conference there was a refrain I heard over and over again. It was not the sung refrain of certain thematic songs, although these were present
and performed repeatedly.

No, the refrain I heard over and over again was a simple set of three rules I am well
acquainted with yet find myself neglecting. I should know them, for they are part of
some of the questions asked of me at my ordination:

“Do you know the General Rules of our Church?”

“Will you keep the General Rules of our Church?”

And for me this was followed up with a third question:

“What are they?”

You, dear reader, might find it curious that the answer is simply:

Do No Harm.

Do Good.

Attend Upon the Ordinances of God.

Updated just a bit in a recent best-selling book by retired United Methodist Bishop
Rueben P. Job, Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, I heard those phrases
uttered repeatedly at General Conference:

Do No Harm.
Do Good.
Stay in Love with God.

These were the “General Rules” of the Methodist Societies founded by John
Wesley, inspired by Jesus’ response to the question, “What is the greatest commandment?”
Jesus answered, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,’
and the second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
(Mark 12:29-31)

Bishop Job writes:

I believe we have reached a place where, as a people of faith, we are
ready to give serious consideration to another way, a more faithful way of
living as disciples of Jesus Christ. This way must be so clear that it can
be taught and practiced by everyone…. This way of living was given to
John Wesley in a time much like our own…. And now
it has been passed on to us. Now it is up to us to see
if we will take it, teach it, and practice it until it becomes… a way of
living that will mark our life together and our lives as individual Christians.
(Three Simple Rules, p. 10)

One Greatest Commandment. Three Simple Rules.
A Christian Way of Life.
Do No Harm. Do Good. Stay in Love with God.
Sounds like a Godly sort of Method!

Pastor Jon ONE COMMANDMENT, THREE RULES

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Friday, May 2, 2008

New Mexicans at General Conference

New Mexico was represented at General Conference by more than just delegation members.
I want to lift up volunteers, and visitors, from the New Mexico Conference.

Susan Brumbaugh and Randall Partin, husband-and-wife super-duo, were VERY involved at General Conference. Susan was the Coordinator of the Calendar for General Conference, overseeing the process and publication of petitions and resolutions as they emerged from Legislative Committees and headed for the Floor of the conference for action in the full plenary sessions. We heard from Susan each morning, as she guided us through consent calendars and calendar items. Randall could be found in the calendaring office, or undertaking one mission or another throughout the conference center, helping to get the petition and resolution information where it needed to be.

Steve Davis served as a marshal, and was a steady presence on the plenary floor or in legislative committees, helping the work of the conference to run smoothly. Multiple times every day I ran into Steve as he represented New Mexico through his volunteer service.

Raquel Mull was part of the team of monitors from the General Commisssion on the Status and Role of Women and/or the General Commission on Religion and Race, and was present throughout our sessions.

Amy Grace Krueger, though now living beyond the bounds of the conference, was one of the capable volunteers working in the prayer center.

Bethany Carpenter arrived to volunteer at a powerful interactive display set up by the General Commission on Religion and Race.

Doug Mills was present on behalf of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns

We also had several people from the New Mexico conference who came as visitors:
Sanford Coon
Roy Elmore
Kevin Bushart
Bethany Carpenter

If I have overlooked anyone, I apologize… but I think it’s important to TRY to share the many other people from the New Mexico Conference who have been involved, as volunteers or visitors, at General Conference.
If you run into them at Annual Conference, or at some other event, ask them about it.
If they were a volunteer… thank them!

Peace,
Jon Moore

Posted by Pastor Jon Moore at 3:26 PM

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Another special visitor… and still more business

Today we had another special visitor at General Conference:
William Gates, Sr., father of the Bill Gates of Microsoft, came to us as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He came to talk about the partnership we have for the purpose of eradicating malaria from this world. The foundation is giving 5 million dollars to the United Methodist Church, as seed money to raise additional funds and to begin additional infrastructure for eliminating this disease.
It was great.
A basketball is being bid upon throughout General Conference, the proceeds of which will go to the Nothing But Nets campaign. The current bid is up to about $20,000 (an annual conference has placed the bid). Mr. Gates announced the Foundation would match the winning bid.
Exciting!

It was a nice break in the middle of today, a day filled with the big plenary session and lots of calendar items to debate and put through. These last few days of General Conference are filled with a couple hundred calendar items brought from committees to the the floor, of removed from the consent calendar.
At the moment, I think we have slightly over 100 left… and we can’t leave tomorrow until they’re done!
This afternoon’s plenary has been filled with constitutional changes… which basically amount to changing the names of non-US conferences from “Central” Conferences to “Regional” Conferences. This might seem like a minor thing… except “central” evokes days of colonialism and rascism, and many central conference delegates feel the name change would be a sign that we now regard them as equal participants in a global church.
Additionally, if the legislation passes, there could be the capacity to make the USA a regional conference. The implications will not be fully known until a taskforce reports back at the 2012 General Conference… but they want some sort of go ahead from this conference so they do not end up “laboring in vain.”

Ah, well, at some point you have to actually insert all the work of prior days INTO the Discipline… and that’s what we’re up to!
Keep it in your prayers, as important (for the most part) decisions are made.
-Jon Moore

Posted by Pastor Jon Moore at 2:57 PM

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A Special Visitor to General Conference

Today we had a special guest visit General Conference and speak to us:
Her Excellency President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia.
She is a United Methodist.
She is a living testimony to the our mission:
Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World.
President Johnson Sirleaf was educated in the schools created by the UMC in Liberia.
She went on to advocate for justice and reconciliation, as war raged in Liberia.
She is now leading her country into the future.
It was awe-inspiring to have her fly half-way around the world to be with us.
Her speech was inspirational, as she described the steps she, and her country, were taking
to transform the world around them. She is the first woman elected to lead a country in Africa, and the first leader of an African country to address the General Conference.
When she was done speaking, she stepped down from the platform to greet those in the front row, then spent time greeting the assembled Bishops as the Hope for Africa Children’s Choir sang and danced.
It was one of the most powerful non-worship moment I have experienced during General Conference.

The President of Liberia is a United Methodist disciple of Jesus Christ who, out of her own transformation, is now transforming the world.

Celebrating Disciples Transforming the World,
-Jon Moore

Posted by Pastor Jon Moore at 9:07 PM

Monday, April 28, 2008

A New Hymnal… and a Tired Old Song

I was on the floor of the conference tonight when the study commission report was presented seeking authorization for a new hymnal.
I got to vote on it.
But, before the vote, some quite interesting debate was had.
And, eventually, creation of the new hymnal was authorized… barely!

Now, I’m 34, and I’m a big proponent of contemporary and emergent worship forms… but I was disturbed by some younger adults speaking against the creation of the hymnal.

Sometimes when we feel left out, we act very quickly to leave out others, and I doubt we even realize what we are doing.
Will that cycle ever be broken? By and by, Lord, by and by!

Some people, commenting on the inclusion of praise/contemporary music in a new hymnal said, “They will be out-of-date before the hymnal is ever published.”
One problem with that: “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” is STILL on CCLI’s top 10 list.
STILL. It was the number 1 most popular praise song every year from 1997 to 2003, and has been in the top 10 every year since. It is currently #9. (sources: ccli.com & wikipedia)
It was written in 1989… the year our last hymnal was published.
Hmmm.
Truthfully, I don’t like that song all that much… but it happens to be one of the favorites of a prominent member of my church who is 15 years younger than me.
Yes, I said younger than me.
Hmmmmm.
I guess it’s hard to say Lord I Lift is “out-of-date.”
Or if it is, what makes it so? You’ll have to have a pretty good argument to convince me, given what I’ve cited above!

Regardless:
As a 34-year-old pastor who pushes contemporary and emergent worship, I voted for the new hymnal, and I see great value in it.
The church I serve has two strong-and-growing traditional services (and a strong-and-growing contemporary service) that deserve a new hymnal worship resource. There is a very wide age-range in every worship service in the church I serve… from Millenials to Builders in traditional AND contemporary. And there are people worshiping in my church that are most connected to God when they are singing, or hearing, traditional hymnody.
And for some of them, it is newer hymnody that carries them to the throne of their Lord.
It IS time for a new hymnal. Why on earth did it get such opposition?

Sometimes the road to being respected is giving respect.
The path to having one’s desires for relevant worship music respected
means respecting someone else enough to give them music that makes THEIR worship relevant.
To them. Not to you, or to me. To them. Your, my, brother and/or sister in Christ.

This post may not have been ABOUT General Conference, but it was certainly caused by today’s legislation.
I hate to see the Tired Old Song of disrespecting someone else’s worship music…
no matter WHO is singing that out-of-tune, dissonant, caterwauling melody!
(or how old they are)

with a Joyful Noise,
Jon

Posted by Pastor Jon Moore at 11:08 PM

Monday, April 28, 2008

Some Conference Pictures

The General Conference Floor.

Waiting to be called to the floor.

The delegation back from lunch.

Entering the conference center.

The entire city welcomed the Methodists.

Prayer Vigil

A good lookin’ group!

Posted by Jeffrey Brooks at 10:39 AM

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The River Runs Through It

The hotel most of our delegation is staying at is the Hotel Trinity. It’s perched about 2 miles from downtown Fort Worth and the convention center in which General Conference is happening. The hotel is named for the Trinity River, which flows past us and on into downtown Fort Worth.
The Trinity River happens to be a 550-mile river that flows entirely within the state of Texas, making it the second longest river entirely in one state in the country. (Alaska has the longest: the Kuskokwim.)
Two of the Trinity’s four forks meet very near downtown Fort Worth: the East Fork and the Clear Fork.

Right about now you might be asking:
“That’s all very nice, but what on earth does this geography lesson have to do with General Conference?!?”

Well, dear reader, it just so happens that today I realized the environment around this General Conference is offering a most apt metaphor for what I see going on within this General Conference.

I see evidence that the two forks might be merging.

I have been thinking a little bit more about Bishop Hutchinson’s sermon from yesterday (see an earlier post I wrote about it below), and about our need for the water and the spirit. Just as those two forks of the Trinity merge close to where we enter the downtown en route from our hotel to the Conference site; so I have seen the two great forks of our theological perspectives coming together in this downtown Conference setting.
One of my duties at this General Conference has been the monitoring of the legislative committee that is working on one of our perennial controversial favorites: homosexuality.
I saw people from both liberal and conservative camps working together to search for different lines of communication, and new language that could get them talking TO each other.
I heard young adults call on others to find ways to transcend the divisions that are not foundational for holistic thinking younger generations who are disinterested , disheartened, and just about done with the ceaseless debating.

Not everyone involved wanted to take the rapids down through the swirl of those waters coming together… but those that did began to take action (a key theme of this General Conference) towards creating a Future with Hope (THE theme of this General Conference).

I don’t know how things will develop from here.
Water that is seemingly growing calm can suddenly come roaring down cataracts around a simple bend to the right or to the left…
or find itself going down a waterfall…
or crashing into a dam….

And even in those who are still refusing the trip into the whorls of uniting tributaries — even in them I quite clearly heard hearts desiring to reveal the love of God and heads focusing on the acquisition of the truth of God.

And so the Spirit of God ran right through the middle of everywhere I went this day….
Truly I tell you, General Conference can be a thing of beauty, sparkling in the light of another new day, as the gleaming pathways of the Way of Christ meander across the sometimes parched grounds of bureaucratic meeting-rooms.

Pray that the beauty I have found here doesn’t fade over the next few days.

And if it does begin to fade… I’ll pray that the Great Physician gives an emergency facelift.
Or at least another drink of that water.

-Jon

Posted by Pastor Jon Moore at 9:07 PM